The Dark Trilogy

by Patrick D'orazio

  Perceived troublemakers were rounded up and dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the shelter. George wasn’t sure what happened to them, but as he lay awake in the middle of that night, he heard muffled shots being fired from automatic weapons outside the high school. After that, previously loud complaints turned into whispered grumblings, and most of the refugees steered clear of the soldiers patrolling the gym.

  That was when George and his newfound friends decided it was time to plan their escape.

  George and Jason, Part 2

  The memories from those early days continued to trickle into George’s mind as he entered the room he used as a bedroom. He plopped down on the small blanket and thin pillow he had acquired from the nurse’s station downstairs. His room was situated next to the room to which Jason had laid claim, which had once been a dusty storage area. The entire second floor was mostly storage, with the main area below housing the classrooms, gym, and church. He and Jason had blocked off the doors to the church from the part of the building in which they stayed when they first arrived. It would have been impossible to protect the large open nave, with its massive windows and glass doors. The irony was not lost on George. He had found Jesus and even fled to a house of God, but had to steer clear of the church to avoid an agonizing death.

  ***

  After the riot, George, Al, Jennifer, and Jason decided to bide their time for at least one more day. The rumors about what was happening outside had faded away as fewer newcomers were funneled into the high school. Most of the refugees still trickling in were being processed at the elementary school, but one of the last bits of gossip they heard was that there weren’t any more people seeking shelter. There was no one left alive out there.

  Soldiers patrolled the gym, moving between isolated groups with their automatic weapons unslung and ready for anyone who might cause them trouble. Another day went by, and any new rumors passed along by the refugees about what was going on outside were mostly just unintelligible garbage George dismissed out of hand. Soldiers who were willing to talk insisted there were more refugees still funneling in across the street. All he knew for sure was that more troops were showing up at the school. He saw them talking outside the gym and could hear more vehicles out in the parking lot. Soldiers stationed with the huddled masses inside were more agitated than usual.

  It was enough to convince George that their little group’s time had come. Despite the eradication of the troublesome gang members, it would not be long before someone else tried to start another revolt. Everyone was tired, angry, and afraid. They were jammed into a claustrophobic environment, and it appeared as if George wasn’t the only one planning something. He wondered if, when it all went down, the soldiers would even bother with tear gas or just start firing their weapons into the crowd.

  After a long, sleepless night, it came to George. Jason was small enough that he could slip out when they shuffled into the cafeteria to eat breakfast. There had been no head counts in several days. The guards had slacked off ever since the real troublemakers had been eliminated. They were paranoid and concerned that everyone would try to rush their positions at the main exits, or try to steal their weapons, but didn’t appear worried that someone might sneak deeper into the building. When George approached the twelve year old, Jason was more than willing to go on an “adventure” to help them all out. He was practically champing at the bit to make a break for one of the doors that led to unused classrooms in the high school.

  At breakfast, Jason displayed no fear as he stood up and boldly walked across the room away from their table. No one, including the soldiers standing guard and serving the food, took notice of the boy. Just as George thought, the other refugees were too wrapped up in their own woes to care about some random kid. The soldiers were just as distracted. With someone different approaching them to argue or complain about something every few minutes, they were too busy to pay attention to a boy slinking around the crowded space. George, for all his confidence that he was doing the right thing, could barely watch as Jason crossed the linoleum floor toward one of the sets of doors. When Al squeezed his arm and smiled to let him know that Jason had made it, George felt weak.

  No alarms were raised as Jason slipped through the doors, nor were there any hints that the soldiers suspected anything.

  When the time came to leave the cafeteria, the three remaining members of the group shuffled out with all the rest of the entrapped citizens and returned to their cots, biding their time until lunch. If Jason were caught in the few hours between the two meals, they hoped he would get no more than a scolding. Even as high strung as the guards were, unless he snuck up on one and yelled “Boo,” he would probably be safe. If one of the adults had gone and had been caught … it was hard to imagine it would have gone well for that unfortunate individual. George remembered the fit Jennifer had thrown about Jason taking on such a responsibility and how she couldn’t sit still as they waited, wondering if he were okay.

  At lunch, when Jason returned to them unnoticed, it took all the trio had to not stand up and cheer as he slipped in beside them at their table. They sat, grinning and patting him on the back, but waited until they were back in the relative privacy of their small section of the gym to ask him what he had seen. He told them about the corridors down which he was willing to venture. He had found several empty classrooms and, more importantly, a hallway leading to an exit on the opposite side of the building that didn’t appear to be guarded. He was able to open the door; no alarm had sounded, and it was only locked from the outside. There were no guards posted outside at the back of the building. Now all they needed was a distraction so they could make their move.

  George winced at the memory of their excitement and shared euphoria. They had been so optimistic! It was hard to imagine how he had rooted for someone to attack the guards or to cause another riot, just so the four of them could steal away in the ensuing chaos. There was nothing redeeming about such thoughts, though surely God would forgive his weakness in that moment. The four of them gathered up what few possessions they still had and the small amount of food they were able to sneak out of the cafeteria for their anticipated journey.

  The rest of the day passed without event, except for more and more soldiers running in and out of the gymnasium, hour after hour. Most of the newer residents of the makeshift dormitory did not notice, but George and his team studied the soldiers, hoping that something would come up that would keep them occupied so the foursome could make an unannounced exit.

  With looks of exasperation and nervousness on most of the soldiers’ faces, George guessed it wouldn’t take long. He could sense that things were getting ready to boil over outside.

  They settled in for the night, and the lights were turned off. George told Al to be ready to wake Jennifer and Jason at a moment’s notice. After a few uneventful hours, neither of the men could keep his eyes open, so when the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, it woke them both. People leaped up all around them, several with terrified screams. After a couple of minutes of complete confusion, a young lieutenant came into the gym with a bullhorn and called for everyone’s attention. After the alarm was shut off and he had spent the better part of another minute asking for silence, everyone settled down.

  The lieutenant appeared poised, and George guessed he was a veteran of either Afghanistan or Iraq who was called back stateside when the shit hit the fan. The soldier’s voice was confident and forceful. He announced that they were going to have a fire drill, strictly as a precautionary measure. No one had any reason to be alarmed, and they would all be back in their beds in a few minutes if everyone cooperated. He directed them to form two single-file lines so they could move over to the cafeteria. The lieutenant’s body language did not contradict his calm, calculated tone—there were no nervous twitches and no cracks in his veneer. But when George looked closer, the soldier’s eyes told him everything he needed to know. He wondered how many others sensed it. Ripples of panic ran throughout the crowd but
nothing substantial. The lieutenant was good, but George could see the truth he was trying to hide.

  It was time to leave.

  George squeezed Al’s arm and gave the younger man a curt nod. Al returned the gesture and pulled his wife close, leaning in and whispering in her ear. She went white as a sheet as she listened to him speak. Her hands were on Jason’s shoulders, and as they tightened, the preteen looked back at the others. His eyes sparkled with excitement as he realized their adventure was about to begin.

  When the sound of gunfire from outside became audible, only a few people toward the back of the lines noticed. When those people hesitated, several soldiers jabbed at them with their M16s and kept them moving toward the cafeteria. Soon everyone could hear the weapons fire, and frantic conversations broke out up and down the lines of refugees. Several of the men and a few of the women yelled at the soldiers, demanding to know what was going on outside. When they were ignored, they screamed even louder, and others added their voices to the mix. What started out as apprehension was turning into something far worse as panic spread throughout the crowd.

  The foursome knew they needed to make their move before things got ugly. They fought through the surging crowd, toward the front of the pack, making their way into the cafeteria. They then maneuvered toward the exit through which Jason had departed hours before. They waited, afraid that if they tried to leave at that moment, their departure would be noticed as the rest of the refugees filtered into the room.

  George couldn’t recall exactly how everything went down, but he believed that was the moment when several people decided to charge the soldiers. He could not recall if it was a bunch of individuals acting on their own or some sort of concerted effort. What he did remember were the results.

  A warning shot boomed out, and soldiers pointed their rifles at the potential attackers, who had enough sense to stop before they were fired upon. Another noise, this time an explosion from outside, shook the floors and walls moments later. After that, everything was a blur. There was pushing and shoving and more shots fired, but George didn’t pay any attention. Instead, his eyes were focused on the door offering him and his friends a chance at escape. He grabbed Al by the shoulder and slammed his other fist into the door, pushing it open and shoving the other man through. George then waved Jason and Jennifer into the depths of the darkened building. They took off running, the sound of gunfire and screams echoing behind them.

  Jason took the lead, maneuvering them through the building, easily avoiding areas that had been populated by soldiers. There was little to worry about; it appeared as if most posts had been abandoned, perhaps only moments earlier. The repetitive reports of automatic gunfire and the rage of the crowd became muffled as they passed through several more doors.

  After a while, it was hard to determine whether the gunfire they were hearing came from inside or outside the building. The echoes made it hard to tell if they were getting closer to or farther from various trouble spots as they followed Jason down another dark hallway. After ten minutes of running, George began to worry that the twelve year old was leading them in circles. But when he saw a beam of light shining from down a hallway, he breathed a sigh of relief and swore never to doubt Jason again.

  Moonlight shone into the hallway as they turned the corner and made their way down that final corridor. Jason ran ahead and waved them on as they rushed toward the exit. The sound of gunfire and screams grew louder. The letters in the EXIT sign glowed a luminous red, and everyone felt a great sense of relief. George gestured for Jason to get behind him, and he moved to peek out the glass door. What he saw confirmed what the boy had told them earlier.

  The door led out to the staff parking lot at the back of the building. The lot was jammed full of cars. Beyond that, a flat field ran for about a quarter-mile, with a wooded area farther still. George cursed, wishing that just one member of his little party had some familiarity with Gallatin and might know how deep the woods were and what lay beyond them. His best guess was that they weren’t too deep and that a subdivision or a farm or two weren’t far off in the distance.

  Even if the stand of trees were only a few feet thick, they should be able to slip into them and not be discovered by the Guardsmen. George didn’t want to creep around in the darkened woods for too long, especially with the infected roaming out there. There was no distant glow of city lights out beyond the woods, but he wondered if the power were still up and running anyway. Besides starlight, the only illumination came from the other side of the high school.

  Another explosion had the little group grabbing for each other, and Jennifer screamed, startled by the excruciatingly loud noise. The building vibrated, and a bright light flashed overhead, casting dramatic shadows on the parking lot. The image was so bright it burned into George’s retinas, and he spent the next thirty seconds trying to blink it away. More gunfire followed, louder and closer. He listened for any other noises he could differentiate from the explosions and was rewarded with sounds of men yelling and vehicles moving off in the distance. There was something else as well, a sound he could not quite decipher.

  He turned to face the others. The plan wasn’t complicated. The woods were their best bet. They could angle away from the parking lot and go north—the trees dipped in at their closest point there and were only a hundred yards away from where the group was now. They would avoid going deep into the woods unless they were spotted or in danger and would try to figure out the best direction to head after they got there.

  Even when George could no longer hear any yelling or the sound of vehicles moving out in front of the high school, that other noise, the one he couldn’t quite put his finger on, continued. It was a constant hum, almost a buzzing. It was as if a massive hornet’s nest had been riled up.

  George ignored the sound as he wrapped his hand around the door handle, ready to jump outside. It was then that he noticed something out in the dark—shadows moving in the woods. Before he could take a closer look, he heard the thudding of boots echoing down the hallway behind them. The four turned as one to stare back down the passageway. They couldn’t see anything, but heard yelling along with the echoes of gunfire and screams coming from inside the building. The noise had been muffled before, but now was much clearer.

  George said a little prayer and opened the door, ushering the others outside, where they pressed themselves up against the building. As soon as the door opened, sound thundered from all around them, and the meager noise from inside was drowned out. The night sky flashed repeatedly with a lightshow that reflected off the woods beyond the parking lot. The shadows George had seen moments before coalesced into human shapes moving through the woods toward them. He swung his arm out, a warning and an obstacle to Al, who was about to depart their shadowy hiding place to rush for the woods as they had planned. George motioned for Al and the others to take a closer look at where they were headed.

  A man had broken free of the trees. Behind him, several others followed. With only intermittent lighting, it was hard to tell if they were men or women.

  At first, none of them could discern much about the man as he stumbled out from behind a tree and moved closer. When another flash of light came from the front of the building, his face was lit up brighter than daylight for an instant.

  Al hugged Jennifer and muffled her scream. The man moving out of the woods was dead. He wore a pair of overalls with a tremendous rip down the front. The hole in the material was wet with blood, and macabre tendrils dangled from the rift, bouncing against the soiled denim fabric as the stiff stumbled along. To George, it looked like the man had been torn open so that some creature might dig into his guts haphazardly, pulling out random bits and pieces. As quickly as the man was showcased in all his malignant glory, the light blinked out and he was hidden from view once again.

  They tried to remain calm as they huddled against the wall, watching more of the human-shaped monstrosities approach from the woods. George recalled wondering if he had gone insane, because none
of what he was seeing could be real. But as the lights flashed on more ghouls making their way toward the soldiers at the front of the building, he realized that this was far too horrible for his mind to have created on its own.

  The quartet was still trying to grasp the full magnitude of this nightmare when another door, about thirty feet from their position, opened and slammed against the brick wall. Another group of refugees poured out and ran toward the cars in the parking lot. They didn’t notice George’s group and apparently had not looked outside before bursting from the building. Based on how fast they were running, George guessed that something inside had scared the hell out of them.

  One of the people in the other group, a heavyset man wearing a John Deere cap, waved the rest on, motioning them to fan out and check the cars for one or more that had keys in it. George hushed his crew to silence as the other group became loud enough to be heard over the clamor coming from the far side of the building.

  When some of the shadowy forms to the north stopped their progress toward the front of the building and turned to face the parking lot, George knew his decision to remain quiet had been the right one. The infected switched direction and moved into the parking lot toward the other group. As George watched them, he blinked twice, hard. He could see more human shapes coming toward the other group of refugees, but these weren’t bunched together like the others. They were spread out, coming from … everywhere, from every direction, every angle—from across the field, from the woods … everywhere.

  A dark thought trickled into George’s head. If these people hadn’t come along, we would all be dead now. He would have led his group into the woods and right into the arms of the undead if the loud group of refugees had not drawn their attention first.